Of Evil
by MurasakiNeko
Summary: The Death Eaters tell their side of the story their individual stories. These are the reasons why they joined up . . . and why they hold regrets. Newest Chapters: Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange.
1. Introduction: The Death Eaters

**Title:** Of Evil.  
**Author:** MurasakiNeko.  
**Rating:** R (okay, so it's just PG-13 . . . so far).  
**Warnings:** Spoils all presently published books (ahh, that I COULD spoil Book 7 . . . that would be crazy . . . ).  
**Summary:** The Death Eaters explain their side of the story-- their individual stories.  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or any of J.K. Rowling's characters. Apparently I don't even own the philosophy. Dumbledore had it covered- and he's right, I promise you! He's right! Censored IS NOT EVIL!

**Chapter:** Introduction.  
**Chapter Title:** The Death Eaters.  
**Character(s)**: . . . the Death Eaters?  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Harry Potter, this would be in a very nice decorated jacket and cost you money. It's not . . . so, if you haven't made the deduction yet . . . I don't own Harry Potter.

**Recommended Listening:** "Adagio for Strings" by William Orbit.

* * *

_"Is there not in every human soul an essential spark, an element of the divine, indestructible in this world and the next, which goodness can preserve, nourish, and fan into glorious flame, and which evil can never quite extinguish?"_ -Victor Hugo, _Les Miserables._

_"They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating towards a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty."_ -Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

We all joined for need of something. For some of us, it was acceptance-- by family, by peers, or by society. For others, it was to fill a gaping void created by years of unfulfilling life. For a few, it was merely a means of excusing what already was. It added purpose to nihilism, goal to existence, wholeness to incompleteness, meaning to vacuum, and belonging to loneliness. Nevermind the consequences.

Judge us for what we are. We do not doubt there shall be condemnation.

Oh, we are terrible, we Death Eaters. Terrible, horrible, appalling, unspeakable, _evil._

This evil- perhaps there is no denying it. It permeates our lives- the deaths we wreak, the lives we destroy, the hopes we shatter. Yet with that, do we not lose part of ourselves? The Dark Arts require destruction for creation; it is the root and source of their magic.

How is it we became this way? Were we a special race born of darkness? Is the very root of evil implanted in our souls? Does it tear the goodness from our bones, sucking like a dementor from us any hope of redemptive qualities?

You judge far too harshly. We are merely weak. We are but human.

* * *

_Author's Note: I actually wrote this introduction in Sociology class while studying gang, cult, and clique behavior, last May or so, believe it or not. That I come so close to J.K. Rowling's own words almost scares me- but I'm much more optimistic (and, I swear, I'm not plagiarizing). Waves hands proudly in the air. Dumbledore is my over-trusting homeboy! Woot woot! Gets shot._


	2. Victory: Lucius Malfoy

**Chapter:** 1.  
**Chapter Title:** Victory.  
**Character(s):** Lucius Malfoy.  
**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Harry Potter. I'm not going to pretend to in this individual chapter.

**Recommended Listening:** Pomp and Circumstance March #3 by Edward Elgar (no . . . it's not the one you're thinking of. Seriously. Go listen to it. Everybody gets a song! . . . and, believe me, I know dark classical music ).

* * *

You may call it ambition. You may call it perfectionism. Whatsoever name you give it, I always win. I always end up perfect. I alone stand as the ideal.

Fantasize, too, however so much as you wish, that this perfection stemmed somehow from my upbringing– and know you are incorrect. I was never abused; I was never even severely punished. I never required it. I spent no long hours locked away in cupboards, no days unable to sit down due to carefully placed Stinging Hexes, no mornings flushed and furious in the aftermath of an ignominious Howler.

Ambition is part of nature, not nurture; I would not have been nearly so successful had my drive for glory been forced upon me.

My father encouraged my passions, and gave me great advantages in achieving them, but he never took the role in shaping them. It was of my own accord that I pored countless hours over books in the manor library, forcing myself to memorize spells, repeating them over and over to myself until my lips grew dry and the forelock of my hair stuck to my sweating forehead like a silvery-blond headband. It was of my own willing that I would take my broom out into the morning mist and disappear until lunch, returning with chest heaving, muscles sore, endorphins racing, and Chasing skills greatly enhanced. It was I, who, with my father's express permission against the word of the Ministry but with goals of my own, spend half-day sessions in the basement, bouncing off the walls curses, hexes, and jinxes to the likes half the teachers at Hogwarts had never seen. So cursed was that basement wall that one of our house elves died from brushing against it. Father did anything he could to help me, of course, from supplying the books to buying the brooms to arguing my case against anyone who disapproved with my methods.

In fact, my father was met with many an offended reply when he took it upon himself to check on my progress. "Did you practice those charms I taught you yesterday?"

"Of _course_, Father."

"Did you use that new racing broom I bought you today?"

"Of course. If you'd have bothered to felt it, the twigs are still warm."

He would get the gist, and his displeasure at my tone would be the only correction he had to offer me.

Father was useful in two ways: He taught me the value of contacts, and he made them for me. By knowing the right people and having an advantage with them, there was always another way out, a plan B, an escape route. Through him, I met all the appropriate members of society, and gained both their trust and information for blackmail. I could both exploit the "persuasive powers" of Bellatrix Black or bend her to my will with threat of telling her mother just how many nights she had spent in the boys' dormitories of Slytherin. I could ask Rodolphus as a friend to write my essays for me, or embarrass him into telling me the answers to homework with threats of telling others about his first-year bouts of bed-wetting.

Hard-working as I was, I was never fool enough not to take an easier opportunity when it was granted me. I was Slytherin, after all– no hard-working Hufflepuff, studious Ravenclaw, honorable Gryffindor. I valued my talents more than I valued my hard-gained skills.

For instance, I had struggled with Potions all along. I had trained myself in the patience of it, but I believe it was my very over-concentration that ruined my brews. I would spend so long analyzing the color of the mixture that the flame would go out and the potion would spoil, or I would discard of so many ill-sized ingredients in exchange for more meticulously cut parts that I would waste the materials and fail yet again. It was through this Potions predicament that I won my most useful contact.

Severus Snape was unpopular, even in Slytherin, but I noticed him right away. I had developed an eye for talent that rivaled even Horace Slughorn's. He was a scrawny boy, years younger than I, but his year was full of unusual talents– James Potter, Sirius Black, Lily Evans (a Mudblood, of all things– had I not stated their year was unusual?) – that had been in dearth the years following Bellatrix's and my rivalries for power.

I first accosted him in the common room in the prime hours of the evening, when the chairs and couches were full of students hurrying through homework– or, rather, as this was Slytherin, bartering with one another over who would do what portion of the work. Slytherin society was an odd sort of commune; though each of us was preoccupied with himself before all others, there was great interaction involve the exchange of talents. Slytherins were not incapable of giving; they were merely incapable of giving without promise of worthwhile and useful compensation.

Severus's face, upturned in my presence beneath the thin fall of lank, shiny, dark hair, carried nothing but suspicion. I had made a point of interrupting him by sitting across from the spindly wooden chair on which he sat, throwing my feet up on the table, my boots on his notes taken in a tiny, spidery hand. He knew I was Head Boy– everyone did; my tall, blond figure was imposing and attractive, features befitting one of such high post.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" he sneered, the corner of his lip tugging upward.

I raised my eyebrows. "You're a talent at Potions, I've heard."

He quietly appraised me for a moment, searching my eyes with his own, fathomlessly black. He knew what I wanted. Yet his reply did not suggest it. "I'm not even the best in my year," he said, his voice still cynical and– I could barely admit it to myself– condescending.

"Your year must carry remarkable talent, then," I continued lightly. Though my eyes contained more light than his, I could hold a poker face when I needed. "Considering that I ask your help as top in my own year."

"You're not top in Potions," came a voice over my shoulder. Bellatrix leaned over the back of my chair lazily. Anyone else besides Bellatrix or her sisters would have looked slouchy and unattractive in such a position, but such was the Black bloodline. "Rodolphus carries that. It's all he carries," she added with an eye roll, "but even I'm ahead of you in it. You're _third_, in Potions class," she grinned. "And don't," she looked pointedly at Severus, "let him tell you he's top in everything else. We are presently tied." She met my eyes with an icy glare.

I sneered at her; I had known Bellatrix long enough that I still stooped to pulling faces at her. "Marks and rankings don't matter, Bella."

"_Trix._ Bella_trix_. I never gave you permission to call me 'Bella,'" she turned up her nose.

"Yes, yes," I waved an impatient hand. "It's reserved for your sisters and parents and your filthy bloodtraitor cousin."

"It's reserved," she flushed, "for those _closest_ to me. And Sirius is not owed the honor. Regulus may retain it, yes– but neither of you."

I knew if I pushed her any further I would have her screaming like her aunt in her notorious– and plentiful– Howlers.

She left us alone– or quietly watched from the background; Bellatrix was too curious on my affairs to leave off entirely– and I continued with Severus.

"Look– you've got a keen mind for the Dark Arts. Don't think just because I'm Head Boy I don't notice my Housemate's ambitions. And don't think I don't know you haven't had the best circumstances for learning them." Snape was no wizarding name; though Severus was clearly not fullblood, he was at least partially pure– on his mother's side.

"Think of all you could do to my blasted cousin," Bellatrix shouted back to us. I knew she had been listening.

Severus grinned at this. "I am aware you are in possession of– abilities– I would like to learn, yes," he conceded. "And you wish me to assist with your Potions in exchange for tutoring me?"

"Of course," I said. I held out my hand. "Have we a deal?"

"Oh, don't swear on it," Severus nearly rolled his eyes. "I will give as I receive."

"I've got a test tomorrow. I'll go first."

Severus handed me his potions book, a ratty, secondhand copy that appeared to be an earlier edition than recommended for our terms at school. It was, however, the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6– meant for just below my year, and not his. He was as advanced I had suspected. "Read the notes in the margins for the potion you need to learn. They're all you need to know. I will know if you read more. And know also," he met my eyes intently, "that I do not usually entrust the entire workings of my notes to other students."

I flipped the book over, scanning the unsightly rips. On the back was scrawled "Property of the Half-Blood Prince." I sniffed. "Proud of that, are you?"

His expression did not waver. "I'm no coward about my bloodline," he said equivocally.

"Well, then, my 'Prince'-- ha, where'd you get that one?"

"If you must know, it was my mother's last name. And there is even he who calls himself the Dark _Lord_," he added, no doubt in hopes I would no further jest.

"Yes, yes. And Regulus Black's the Little _King_ . . . and Nero Travers is our _Emperor_ . . . and I'll be God," I laughed. I flipped the book back over, one-handedly. "I can give you a lesson, tonight, if you wish," I offered. "I'll stay up late and read, if it's really as easy as you say. Do me a favor, will you, and use what I teach you to get rid of that Evans girl in your year. It's a bloody disgrace, having her better than any pureblood. Even Slughorn's gotten fond of her." It was a shame for the Slytherins to bear, seeing the Head of House consorting favorably with a girl not only of the rival house, but of inferior blood.

Oddly, the palest pink blush suffused Severus's face. Neither of us spoke on it.

After a few weeks, during which Severus cut a gash in James Potter's shoulder and levitated Peter Pettigrew (he had been aiming for Sirius, but alas– it was amusing anyway) due to my teachings, I was ahead of both Bellatrix and Rodolphus. The reactions were showing.

"Look, I've got ways of paying you back if you'll help me, too," Bellatrix was stroking Severus's leg when I caught her in the common room one night. Severus, amazingly, was neither flushed nor pale; rather, he eyed Bellatrix with shocked disgust. I laughed until I felt a burning at the back of my neck, undoubtably the result of Bellatrix's swiftly bared wand.

It was put out quickly, however, by a soft _Finite Incantatum_ from behind me. I looked to see Narcissa Black, quelling my burns and quelling Bellatrix's vengeful looks with her own icy glare.

Narcissa became another victory– or, rather, she was just another piece that made my life perfection. Though so many had suspected that Bellatrix and I, rivals as we were and similar in age, were meant to be, I would have no one but her sister– lighter, calmer, and oddly sweeter. Narcissa was not something I received by talent or even hard work, but she came, and I discovered love.

There were no tricks in our lover's world. Though Severus and I had our businesslike relationship, though I retained close ties with Bellatrix and Rodolphus, they were with reserves, they were capitalistic exchanges of uses, barbaric to the unselfishness– so unpracticed between two Slytherins– that was love. I preferred to give without expectation to Narcissa.

Still, the perfectionism was not gone. I graduated Head Boy, top in the class in half of the course– including, of course, Potions– sharing with Bellatrix, with numerous honors and countless job offers from the Ministry and high-ranking businesses. Horace Slughorn watched me on tenterhooks to see where he'd be getting his next discount or yearly gift. My father, however, stepped in and recommended the path that had given him his every advantage in life.

I joined the Death Eaters, one of the first of the second generation. Rodolphus– another second-generation– and Bellatrix were soon to follow. Horace Slughorn lost his interest (alas, the Death Eaters never did do much good to groupies; one had to be a member to receive the benefits), but I gained a new playing field, a new realm in which to win victory. I had been the perfect son, then the perfect student: My final and greatest goal was to be the perfect Death Eater.

I played the role perfectly in the first few years, yet my bout with the Dark Lord had proved worthless when he fell only years later. Though this was a blow to seeming perfection, I and my more clever companions– the fanatical Bellatrix dragged her husband and his brother off to Azkaban along with the neurotic Mulciber, sociopathic Dolohov, overly-paranoid Rookwood, and the young Bartemius Crouch, Jr., all equally unstable– I satisfied myself with achieving a perfect place in society, respected by the wizarding community. I gave my gifts and sat my terms on the boards. The connections only made everything more the perfect.

Then came another round of that indescribable love. In the year before the Dark Lord's collapse, Narcissa had bore a son– perfectly: the firstborn, a boy, healthy and whole, the spitting image of his father.

Yet with this love came fatherhood, a game new and different from that of a husband. I was creating a person, not merely combining with one. Like my father before me, I shaped him perfectly, and he rose in my image: Quidditch afficionado (due in part to my advantages to him; I owed it to him), prefect, member of the Inquisitorial Squad that did not exist in my day. He required very little encouragement; such was his desire to please me that the mere mention of any flaw brought a flush of shame to his cheeks and an instant result of improvement. That was the only difference between the two of us, so similar that we even looked twins a generation apart: His ambition was contingent upon my pleasure; his ambitions were mine, not his own.

Yet as the light began to immerse my son, I fell into shadow. The Dark Lord rose once again, and I was forced to confess a mistake– an act I had never grown accustomed to. I was no longer perfect in his eyes, and there was much to be done to remedy this and reconcile my place as the best Death Eater. I had not gone to Azkaban for him. Bellatrix gloated at his side.

I tried my hardest, but Bellatrix spoiled my rise to glory. She had never learned the art of patience and hard work as I had. Our greatest mission, the retrieval of the Prophecy– made necessary by an earlier mistake that had fallen Severus Snape, down to be killed by the Death Eaters but still so necessary a connection with my son at Hogwarts– was destroyed by the conflict of Bellatrix and myself.

The only good was that I served my chance to go to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, while Bellatrix remained at large. Connections were enough to maintain Narcissa and Draco's standing without me.

Yet she was in favor as I sat in prison, after a brief punishment I– and the thought insulted me as it had in my youth at my father's questioning– would likely endure myself upon release. As if in mockery, Bellatrix continued the Dark Arts training I had been giving my son all through his years. She had the means to gain the Dark Lord's favor.

There was only one way, in my position, to do the same. I had to sacrifice my son. Draco was capable of it. He was made of the same as his father, the same as me. I would have capable in his place; I would have shone above and beyond my duty.

The Dark Lord was pleased; there was a mission, in fact, far greater than the retrieval of the Prophecy. My failure would be more than made up for– and only Draco could carry it out. He would win victory for us both, both perfection, both the perfect Death Eater.

Yet the news came to me in the dark of the prison, brought by my pallid wife under dark robes, flanked by dementors and Ministry officials. Her skin shone white and translucent– ghostly so, more so than ever– in the light of the passageway, beyond the bars of my cell. She was entitled her monthly visit, which she had avoided after the first on my orders that they weakened her to a state I could not bear to see her in. Yet she had news for me– and, though she could not speak it in the presence of her guards, she did not need to.

Draco had failed. In my absence, he had failed to sense the weight of my need of him.

The Dark Lord did not blame me. It had happened before. The son could not be responsible for the actions of the father; the father could not be responsible for the actions of the son.

In giving him up, I still had achieved my victory. I had become perfect, no matter how my son full. So sacrificing, so acquiescent tot the cause, I alone stood as the ideal, the perfect Death Eater.

Yet no one could stand with me at that top, not even my son.


	3. Deception: Bellatrix Black Lestrange

**Chapter:** 2.  
**Chapter Title:** Deception.  
**Character(s):** Bellatrix Black-Lestrange.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter-- but I treat him as if I do. Pets.

**Recommended Listening:** 9th Symphony (From the New World), 1st Movement (Scherzo) by Antonin Dvorak.

* * *

They lied to me all along. 

The first lie was from my father. "You're our princess," he told me. "Our _queen_. The firstborn Black daughter, heiress _apparent_," he murmured in the mock French that gave the House of Black, French no longer, a regal air. It would all be mine; I would be Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria . . .

Yet, three years later, when I saw him lying there, so_ innocent_, just a _baby_, a _wee widdle baby_– I knew my father was dead wrong. His intent grey eyes gazed up at mine, which were full of equal reserve. His mop of black hair and olive skin declared him a Black, and, somewhere, buried beneath the blankets and swaddling, was that which made him a boy, the true heir.

Certainly, his father was older than mine. Had he been a girl, he still would have overruled me.

Yet that was another lie that they told me, that girls were just as equal to boys. "Oh, yes, they have the same amount of power!" my mother had chuckled when I asked, ironically straightening a lace tablecloth in the parlor as she spoke to me. "There's been just as many female Ministers of Magic as there have been male. Medea was a witch, wasn't she? Circe? Great, famous witches!"-- but girls had neat little pressed dresses and white stockings and shiny black shoes that couldn't be worn in the dust and the mud, while Sirius and Regulus playfully scuffed the knees of their pants out in the dirt.

My just reaction to that began a whole tirade of lies. "I'll make you regret it," my mother would tell me, coupled with an "if" statement related to something she could see that I was preparing to do. "I'll teach you otherwise," my father would say. "You won't try that again after I'm through with you," my uncle would even threaten. Even my aunt always began them, but her eyes would bulge and froth would foam at her mouth, and she could barely form the words that screeched out her like an unoiled steel pipe. "IF YOU . . . IF YOU . . . YOU . . . !"

I never regretted it, whatever it was: shoving Regulus down the stairs, pulling Andromeda's hair, setting fire to Narcissa's dollhouse, knocking a table over onto Sirius– which broke his leg rather cleanly, I might add. I was irritated by the punishments– a reprimand, a quick stinging hex from my father's wand, a slap on the face or the arm or the backside, ten minutes spent in a chair by the wall or a day shut up on the hall closet– but I never associated them with their causes. My actions were already effects, with their own causes: Regulus had been following me all day, pleading with me to play with him, Andromeda had gotten a prettier doll for Christmas, Narcissa wasn't paying attention to me, Sirius was . . . Sirius just deserved it.

I sensed the difference in Sirius before anyone else did. It wasn't that he was disobedient to his parents– for I was just as bad, and perfect little Andromeda turned out just as bad as he did– it was that he loathed his parents, and not just with the bitter resentment typical of strictly raised children. As soon as he went off to school, the sickness inside of him that went under the title "nobility" in Gryffindor House and "stupidity" in Slytherin, was titled "subversion" at home and was recognized by the rest of the family.

It's not a lie that I tried my best to cure him of it. I believed another one of those great lies, that my blood somehow inevitably bound me to him, that I had a duty to protect him.

"YOU DID WHAT TO MY SON?" his mother had shouted at me, crouching over his slightly dazed body as his father chanted the countering incantation.

She lied; she knew what I did.

"Sectumsempra," I repeated, nonethless. "It's all the rage in Slytherin. He'd have known what was coming if he'd been in the proper house."

"YOU HAVE SOME NERVE– YOU'RE NOT TO DO MAGIC OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL– WHEN YOUR MOTHER HEARS ABOUT THIS– YOUR FATHER– MY SON–" she gasped on and on, shouting incoherently.

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't lie. You'd have done the same if you'd have just heard what he said to me. The Black blood does not deserve to flow through his unworthy veins. Hence," I smirked, "I saw fit to remove it for him."

She narrowed her eyes in return. That I was the favorite of any family member is truly a lie– and that Sirius was not idolized by his parents, however disappointed they were in him, was the biggest lie of them all. "You are in no position to punish my children." Yet she knew I had a point. I could barely keep myself from smiling in victory when she snapped down at her now-healed son, "What was it you said to her? What have you said about our house?"

It was always about our house. "The truth," he sniffed. He was a liar. "That you're all inbred, ignorant, decaying filth." He was picking up his mother's own choice language.

She trembled for a moment with her great anger, her insult, and then shot him to his feet with a quick shove. His father was still standing by, and soon Sirius was dragged from the room by the arm, off to some private location for what probably would have proved most entertaining in public. Still, I smiled in triumph at what I imagined to be the results of a great win.

Sirius returned shortly and shot me a venomous look. "I hate you, you know."

"Why don't you just kill us all in our beds, then? If you hate us all– I dare you!" I shot back with fury. I doubted he hated me. He was a liar. I certainly didn't hate him. I had never said so.

He blinked, as if taken aback, smirked, and, then, finally smiled at me. It was a sad smile but with an earnestness I could detect in his foolish eyes, so easily roused to show emotion. He was not expecting my own earnestness. "Oh, come on. Do you think I would actually do that? I hate how you think, dear cousin. I hate what you do. But no matter what I _say_ to you, you know I could never really actually _hurt_ you." He raised his eyebrows, "And I hate that it's apparently not the same way with you. Though even you, Bellatrix, I'm sure, could never bring yourself to _kill_ me."

He had flicked his hair back, rolling his eyes as if this were obvious and of no real importance. Yet I had weighed its gravity then.

Nevertheless, it was a lie. He often underestimated me thus.

Parents lied, and everyone knew it, but it was so much harder to catch the ubiquitous lies of children.

Andromeda was another liar, a habitual liar of the worst sort. Sirius at least let us know his feelings, but Andromeda hid them astonishingly well, and I trusted her. She was a good daughter, well-behaved, Sorted into Slytherin like she was supposed to be– a full, right-out lie. So gifted was she at this dissembling the Hat hadn't even noticed. I trusted her in my youth.

I should have noticed what was hidden in her sweetness and affection– that she was not of the harsh Slytherin conduct– and discerned that her conformity was only due to a yearning to be liked or loved by all of us.

"We'll always be sisters, right?" she had inquiringly cooed one Christmas morning as she slid under the quilt of my bed, dragging Narcissa along with her. It was our Christmas tradition, before being allowed to go to our stockings, that we gathered like this– even now, well into our adolescence. Her feet were icy and rubbed up against mine unpleasantly with her insistence than we all lay close even in the queen-sized bed. "And sisterhood's more important than anything else that comes our way, right?" They were foolish questions, I knew, posed by the weak to hear affirmation of things they knew were not true.

"Of course," was all I replied. I had not lied; I could not think of reason that would bring us apart– and, even after all Andromeda had done and had still yet to do, she was still my sister. She had not asked that I love her or accept her.

"Sisters are more important than boys," Narcissa had agreed– and I noted that she, only in her first year, must have noticed how my attentions were to older, male companions and not to her our days in the Slytherin common room.

"Of course," I had repeated.

Andromeda squirmed. I kicked her legs aside. "Let's swear that we'll always be sisters, no matter what." It was a sly vow; Andromeda must have known already that she was slipping to the disfavor of the family– which she had always feared but never tried hard enough to avoid.

We all sweared upon sisterhood. Andromeda broke it straight away, becoming pregnant with a Mudblood boy's child only three years later and leaving with that as her worthy excuse. Narcissa was soon to follow; though no blood traitor, her love for Lucius Malfoy trumped all favor towards me in every instance. They were both appalling liars, Andromeda posing the very suggestion that we might forever remain loyal, and Narcissa with her insistence that family would come before any boy. Only I kept my promise.

Those boys called me a liar– but I never lied. I never told them I meant anything more than what I did. They made it all up in their minds, lying to themselves. It was easy, since they believed in love.

Another lie.

I don't remember the first time. That the first time is important is a lie. That they'll notice is a another lie. As long as they enjoy it, they don't know if you're tight or new or naive. After all– plenty of naive girls aren't new . . . and plenty of new girls aren't naive. I had been living out all of it in my mind for years, and– that the real thing isn't ever as good as a fantasy is a lie– I made myself live my fantasy. I wouldn't have survived night with so many of them if I hadn't.

It was lucky I did survive. They hadn't lied to me when they said that someday I would find my purpose-- but they had said it would be love, marriage, family, or perhaps a career. Certainly I played the role, marrying as I ought-- a weak, easily manipulated fool, Rodolphus Lestrange, who proved useful in that he obeyed my every whim--but the most important person in my life was barely a person.

_He told the truth. He demanded we tell the truth. He never lied; surely a man who so valued truth could never lie. He knew when we dissembled and there was great punishment to endure. He was refreshing to behold, a man of cause and of honesty. If the truth could not be endured, it was simply withheld. I adored him._

The others beneath him, those whom I had seen the worst of in and out for years, did not understand this about the Dark Lord. It placed me at a high position beside him, my earnestness and genuine dedication to his beliefs-- not subtle, sly, dissembling sucking-up to his high ambition and position-- impressing him greatly, I his _most loyal, _his _most devoted. _

He did not lie when he said the Longbottoms were a threat, that they must be taken care of. I trusted him, and carried out his bidding. He did not lie when he said that I had performed a great service to him.

He did not lie and say that there would be no repercussions. He did say that he was invincible-- and I knew that was not a lie, either.

He disappeared, falling, failing, to a little boy he had half-known would defeat him. The others thought he had lied when he said he was invincible. I knew better.

I

waited my time in Azkaban faithfully. Though my husband and his brother and the others screamed in their sleep at terrible memories, I kept the sober thought of my devotion alive, and, with it, kept most of my sanity.

He had not lied. He was invincible. He rose again, and he freed us, and he rewarded us as he had promised. I scoffed at those liars, those distrustful, faithless types, who had not trusted him. They were liars themselves, incapable of trust as they were incapable of being trusted: Severus Snape, Crabbe, Goyle, Yaxley, the Carrows-- even Narcissa's husband Lucius Malfoy, who had once rivaled me for power beside the Dark Lord. I kept my promise as the Dark Lord had kept his. I was his greatest servant.

He always kept his promises. He does not lie to me. Sometimes, he withholds, but all in good purpose. I trust only him.

I myself have never lied. Everything I've ever said has been entirely true. I believe in my causes. I believe in his causes. I feel the rightness of them.

Yet if he proves to be a liar, like all the others, so would it fit . . .

. . . And I will have been lying to myself just as they did.

* * *

_Author's Note: As Bellatrix is not omniscient, she cannot tell if she is delusional herself– which, according to the traditional premises of good and evil, she is-- but, well, that's only according to the traditional, isn't it? She is the true fanatic: She does believe in the rightness of her cause. There's something to be respected for that, even if you don't agree with her means. Think about it: If you can kill your own family because they go against your morals (and, sure, you scoff, because your morals aren't the same as hers, but hear me out), you really have a strong cause there. She's proud to go to prison for and die for what she believes in. Heh, if it were something other than a Nazi-like pureblood-favoritism, you might even respect it._


	4. Philosophy: Quirinius Quirrell

**Chapter Title:** Philosophy.  
**Character(s):** Quirinius Quirrell.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter. I don't even own my sister who looks like him.

**Recommended Listening: **"The Unanswered Question" by Charles Ives. This is a modern-y (erm . . . bizarre?) piece that fits with Quirrell's slightly modern-y (erm . . . bizarre? Lol . . . ) mindset. It is peace in his philosophy, with the gnawing discordance of not knowing the answer and the impossible search for it.

* * *

I was born to question.

I am a scholar, you might say. More than that, I am a philosopher. I do not wish to merely know; I wish to understand.

Understanding came, for me, through books. Where else does one have access to such knowledge? I could find out about the eating habits of Hokkaido Kappa without ever setting a foot in Japan, or research the causes and effects of the Goblin Rebellion of 1612 without ever having so much as looked at a goblin—or coming near to living through the year 1612 and its centuries spanning beyond it.

Surprisingly, I was not a Ravenclaw.

"_You do not appreciate knowledge for knowledge's sake," _the Hat told me. _"You are filled with great ambition. You long for fame and glory attached to your knowledge. You wish to know to possess power."_

I did not regret my placement in Slytherin.

Hufflepuffs were negligible. I came to laugh at the Ravenclaws, with their studying without aim and their knowledge without purpose. I came to utterly hate Gryffindors.

It is an undeniable fact that Gryffindors judge. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws treat everyone equally, whether in skepticism or in trust, but the Gryffindors define good and evil and treat everyone accordingly. Their decisions are arbitrary. "Nobility" shall be good, they say. "Justice" and "bravery" shall be good. Self-interest, ambition, cleverness– they are bad. Those who possess them are evil, or to be suspected of such. It is amusing, indeed, that they should be so against the intolerance of the Slytherins. To bias against impure blood is the same as to bias against those lacking courage or nobility. Slytherins have no need for lofty ideals of good and evil. Don't believe for an instant that any Slytherin believes he is evil; he will only joke of it. Slytherins do not even see the line between good and evil.

In fact, there is no line.

I came to conclude this long ago. Morals were something inflicted upon men for social control. Even Albus Dumbledore, I concluded, was an old fool who was biased towards his own House and longed to keep things that way. Gryffindor's glory was all due in part to its own enforcement that its values were most respected in society.

Luckily, they never won over Slytherin society.

Slytherin society was something older, something primal, something deeper rooted in the art of survival. While Gryffindors indulged in man-made morals, Slytherins understood their true human instincts. A Slytherin did not give up something unless an exchange was required. Recompensation was demanded. It was a barter rooted in ancient needs to survive. Gryffindors were foolish, making sacrifices with no wish of exchange, merely the "nobility" attached to it. Nobility did not save lives. Slytherin lines, henceforth, were the most long-lasting. Their peoples were not fools.

Surviving in Slytherin society was easy. One did what he could. It was not inhumane; everyone existed with the knowledge that everyone else was equally out for his own. Individuals were distant, but not cruel. It was only when a Gryffindor came in, giving nobly, that the cultures came into shock with one another—that the Slytherins became "cruel" and "selfish." Slytherins did not give. Slytherins exchanged, Slytherins took, or Slytherins expected to be taken from and made means to protect themselves. It was expected all were prepared for this. A lack of consciousness about one's possessions and family was not an excuse to complain about their potential loss.

Slytherins protected their families, as well as themselves and their possessions. Bloodline and its preservation was as important as individual lives, a means of immortality—_living_ immortality that defeated remembrance of a "noble deed" any day.

I decided this for myself. I had found some wisdom in human nature. There were those who accepted what was (the Slytherins) and those who deluded themselves into thinking there was more. I sought to find what was.

So I began my journeys.

I learned depths of human nature many would refuse to admit. Through my reading, I learned that those wisest and most powerful—and those in most ruling positions— had given up in the prospect that there was something more to survival. Through my experiences, I saw the darkest of the dark, the poorest of the poor, the most bereft of the bereft. I saw families driven to cannibalism by hunger, vampires and werewolves given to kidnapping to feed their desires for blood and human flesh, as their societies outlawed their practices and yet gave them nothing to assuage their ailments. I learned to take care of myself and trust no one; I wore strands of garlic about my neck and kept amulets and charms about me at all times. Most importantly, I learned never to trust—and never to love.

For love, I knew, would be the demise of all men. Love was an illusion like good and evil, but even more powerful in its deceit. Love made men sacrifice themselves even more foolishly than Gryffindors did for nobility, even Slytherin men.

Then he found me. He knew the world in ways that even I had not yet found. His words were milk to my thirsty soul; he was the religion to my emptiness, the philosophy to my meaninglessness. I would need to question no longer.

. . . so I let him become part of me.

It was not love, of course. It was more than love. It was dual existence, even more one than two people in love. Yet with it came its price.

Following his orders, I realized that even I did not know all of the answers. I could not always obey his demands. I became weak, trying to know, and yet trying to _not_ know—to obey blissfully without question.

Yet I was born to question.

He punished me. I tried hard to become nothing but minion, but my thoughts—even shared by him—rebelled at this torment. I could not help but analyze all that he said, even though it was always correct. It was rebellion, to question.

Then as I fell, tormented, broken, destroyed by the power of love itself—that illusion which turned out to be not only true in abstract, but true tangibly. My hands burned and fell to ashes at the touch of the boy touched by sacrificial human love. It was not demise after all; it was the demise of those who did not believe in it.

He had taught me lies. I had taught myself lies.

I did not understand after all.

* * *

_Author's Note: Yeah, short but sweet—but to the point! Definitely read for class a few chapters of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" by John Mearshimer and realized he thought the same thing that Quirrell did: "There is no good and evil; there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." Heh, does it make you all feel wonderful to know that this—the idea that there are not "good" and "bad" states, only more powerful states— is actual a political theory called Realism and has been followed by most first-world governments since the end of WWII? Our leaders believe the same thing that Lord Voldemort does!_

_I also apologize for that being so short. Quirrel's not that interesting. The others should be better-- they're on their way._


	5. Jealousy: Rodolphus Lestrange

**Chapter Title: **Jealousy.  
**Character(s):** Rodolphus Lestrange.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter. Not that I'd do any better of a job with him if I DID own him. I'd mess around with the Death Eaters too much, and forget about Harry. Shoot, I'd forget about that whole generation, and just focus on the old one!

**Recommended Listening:** "Witches' Sabbath" from Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. This a wonderfully visual dark piece has a story behind it of a young artist madly love-stricken by a beautiful women (based on Berlioz's own amours for a French actress) who later deceives him, feigning death to result in his execution, at which he discovers she is really a witch. Appropriate here, I do believe.

* * *

I love her. Herhair, black as nothingness, curled devilish tendrils both wild and tame, as inexplicable as a woman's tongue, smooth as her charm. Her eyes, dark and burning, red-hot and ice-cold, a pure oxymoron; eyes of depth, eyes of passion. Her skin, smooth olive. Her lips, bloodred. Her stature like that of an Amazon; imposing and intense, as strong as a man's-- and yet undeniably female, the perfection of female. Her features high and proud, haughty and aristocratic and yet with that lingering brazen edge of a Celtic history not yet inbred out, a sharpness, a remain of that ancient society of female power. Her blood, the carrier of her history in deep red, of ancients and diviners and warriors, all powerful, all awesome. Her voice, the low, deadly whisper of serpents and the shrieks of banshees, terrible and wonderful. Her mind, inexplicable. Her heart, incapable.

So I hate her.

I knew her as a child, and we loved and hated each other in the way that all little children did. Confined to the nursery with the various House Elves to attend to us as the parents of our respective families dined or balled with one another, I would watch her and her cousins and closest companions with jealousy, wishing she would show as much attention—even if just wrath—to me.

I was polite. Lucius and Sirius would torment her, both provokers of that brilliant wrath. I, however, would take her side. Sirius tripped her; I would yank on Sirius's hair and hold it, hard against his back, so that he could do nothing but stare upward, barely breathing, until he pleaded properly for me to let him go. Lucius shut her skirt in the door and smirked, waiting for her to leap away with tragic, embarrassing results; I found reason to go through the door and slammed it on Lucius's hand. She would look to me, and I would smile. She would know—but she would never smile back.

She, Lucius, and I all began at Hogwarts together, a trio of firstborns from the finest of the upper-tier pureblood families, a veritable triumvirate of no less reputation than that after the fall of Caesar. We had power. Our skills crossed the map. Lucius was the most ambitious outright, and most systematic in the execution of his plans and high goals, but it was she who was really in charge—she, the woman, the carrier of a power Lucius and I could only bow before.

It was that womanly temptation that drove us. We learned quickly, in first year, away from the watching of our outwardly-conservative families, how powerful a kiss as a reward could be, when it came from the lips of her. We learned who was in her favor by which of us was allowed to sit closest to her. When her hand slid down the leg of one, it was a sure, spiteful sign to the other that they had fallen out of the light. She refused to give us any more than this.

"Bella—"

"Don't call me Bella, Lucius; I have not given you that privilege."

"—Trix," Lucius finished the name heavily. "I only mean to ask you . . . do you ever intend to follow through with your promises?" he asked, eying with interest the long fingers that stroked temptingly his thigh. I sat on the couch across from them, enduring my punishment for having gotten a better grade in Charms class than she.

"I do," she said shortly.

"You're a liar," Lucius whispered, smirking.

She turned to him, her eyes flaming, and the hand disappeared behind her. "I do not _lie_. I have never lied, Lucius Malfoy." She picked herself up and sat pointedly next to me.

"I know you don't lie," I assured her. I did not even say it to spite Lucius. I wanted her to genuinely know that I believed her.

She did not trust this, as was clear from her arrogance face. She smirked, however, at Lucius's bewilderment. "Aww . . . widdle Wucius's upset that Bella chose 'Dolphus over him."

I finally possessed—or she possessed me, allowing me to think otherwise, as she would always do— her in fifth year. We began on the thin rug before the fire of the Slytherin common room, she sitting cross-legged in her skirt as I sprawled against the legs of one of the carved wooden chairs. She looked at me, smirking periodically, the tip of her quill to her lips. I would raise my eyebrows and return to my reading—which quickly began to go nowhere fast.

She scotched closer, eying me still. Soon, her hand was on my leg and the reading was abandoned. She leaned in me first, and then came the kisses—reserved not, withheld not—passionate kisses. She pushed me over, came over me, attacking me with passion I had forced into subtlety for years. I responded.

She was ready to carry on right upon the Slytherin rug, but I scooped her up as she began to undo my belt, carrying her haplessly from the common room, empty at near midnight, into the dormitory. She wound her legs and arms around my waist and neck as I carried her, seeming not to care that she was suspended.

I threw her onto the bed, undid the rest of my trousers, and attempted to climb on top of her, at which she pushed me off, pulling herself back into her desired position on top of me—and it happened.

I was surprised at her ease and debonair; I became anything but suave.

As we fell apart, collapsing unto the pillows against the curtains which we had only barely thought to shut, I heaved in great, thirsty breaths and gazed at her. She smiled mysteriously, quiet, her chest heaving though her breath made no noise. Her eyes, beneath their dark lids like a '20s vamp, were flaming and her skin was flushed with radiance, her hair spread across the trappings like a blanket. I whispered to her, "Not bad for our first time."

She smiled at me, her eyes aglow, and I knew that this was not the case.

Yet I continued to lay beside her. Always her hair splayed in tight tendrils across the strewn pillows, her skin caressing the smooth green Slytherin sheets of my bed, yet there became more of her— larger, fuller, more belonging to a woman. The curtains still hung shut around us, the air thick and hot, steaming with the passion I felt for her. Both of us grew older, more experienced. It was no great affair, these nights. The magic of her body and the smooth sheets and thick air soon would dissolve into her slipping into her blouse of the uniform, I pulling on my trousers and my Hogwarts vest, kicking books out of the way on the floor in an effort to find our shoes that had been lost in the scuffle. She shrieked irritably about the mess of boys' dormitories, and the other boys snickered, occasionally giving the lude remark about the state of the sheets or a comment on the need to use a stronger Silencing Charm. She would toss her hair back and glare at them, or, if she were particularly a bad humor, shoot a Stinging Hex or worse at one of them.

Lucius always managed to keep from the room on those nights—and I learned that some nights, Lucius's Silencing Charms weren't all they were cracked up to be, either.

One night in seventh year, there were small moans and deep sighs that I had never heard before, never in all my nights with her. I couldn't take it.

"Curse you to the fate of fucking Grindlewald, Malfoy!" I cried, pushing back the charmed-shut green velvet trappings of his four-poster bed.

There was a scuffle, but, lying on the tousled sheets before me was none other than Narcissa Black in her bedmate's arms. Her hair, ethereal white-blond, did not curl as tightly as her sister's, her skin was pale porcelain rather than olive, and her eyes, staring widely in shock, were pale blue and shallow, framed by dark eyelashes that flickered fearfully. She was not her.

Lucius smirked, pulling the girl wrapped in sheets closer to his bare chest. "How uncouth of you, Lestrange. Loud as you are, I have never interrupted you."

"You're—you're—you're sleeping with Narcissa!" I shouted, amused, astounded, unbelieving all at the same time.

"Excellent conclusion, Rodolphus. I'm glad that a Hogwarts education has taught you so much."

"But not Bellatrix—not Bella?"

"Oh, has she given you permission to call her Bella?"

I grinned this time. "I daresay she soon will."

There was no question my parents approved of my union with Bellatrix. I merely needed to make my love out to be economics—she was of fine family, she had connections, she had power, she had money, she had beauty that would carry on into children. She even had talent and ambition—qualities not imperative in a wife, but useful nonetheless.

I was lucky to be in love with someone of such standing. It didn't matter Bellatrix's feelings in the matter, anymore than it did mine—but as I was the male, I had the power to see my whims through to the end, as long as I took the right measures.

Still, I longed to woo her. I would have no unwilling wife. I wanted love.

"I'll marry you, 'Dolphus," she grinned when I asked her. "Mother and Father told me this would be the case. My options have always been—favorable," her lips curled into a smile that echoed that of one who has just drunk blood. "Yet my dear sister cares so for Mr. Malfoy . . . and I do care for my sister's feelings—foolish girl as she is. And you, Rodolphus," here it was she paid me my first, last, and only compliment, "are much more to my complement. You need not be in charge of me as Lucius does. Let Narcissa deal with his petty whims." She threw her head back and scoffed, and I knew it was yet only another act of spite on my behalf and at his cost—but it brought me my ends, and the ends are what has always mattered to the Slytherins.

Marriage was nothing, I knew. It was only, yet again, a win for the moment. It meant nothing. At any moment Lucius could have her in his arms again, and I could do nothing do stop it but slander his reputation—a poor compensation that will fall upon mine. He could have her as easily and as appropriately as any lady in the wizarding world—in secret, in silence.

Yet Lucius withdrew from the race. Narcissa, though three years our junior, married only a year after Bellatrix and I—and Lucius would have none other than her.

"Foolish, both of them," she would laugh. "_Love_, ha! It was love that did _the other one_ in; it's love that will do them in as well. Such illusionary lies!"

Yet with the exit of Lucius came a threat even greater. She had found a passion.

He was a figure called Lord Voldemort whose influence was greater than even Grindlewald's had been. He spoke of great political things, things pureblood society wanted to hear, taking them in as easily as Hitler, crushing his opposition as thoroughly as Stalin. He spoke eloquently to all who would listen—which were many, amongst my friends and their families.

She could not get enough of him. Bitterness at her divided family inflamed her senses, and I wished I received half as much loyalty as the cousin and sister who had left her without a word. They captured her attentions once again, leaving me only to watch politely, consolingly.

"He'll take care of our fallen way off life . . . he'll bring us back to glory . . . he understands—oh, Rodolphus, he understands . . . I've never felt so strongly about anything in my life . . . we have to join with him, we have to!"

I grasped her wrists, angered at her shows of passion that were never for me. "What, so you can lay with him, the way you used to whore with Lucius Malfoy?" Though I had to admit, in the depths of my mind, that there was something irresistibly erotic about the thought, I was painfully jealous.

"You're repulsive," she frowned at me. "The Dark Lord does not succumb to low human desires. You're the weak one, Roldolphus."

She was right. The Dark Lord was above all such human needs. The only emotion, it seemed, that he possessed, was anger.

I was not. Through everything, I followed her, desperate to keep her from choosing another, more worthy candidate over me. I followed her right to prison, killing and shrieking with laughter along the way. I was never mad like she was—only mad for her. No matter where she went, what she did, I forced myself.

. . . and then, that night, in the Department of Mysteries, he grabbed her—and I was left alone to face the opposition. She was gone—and happily so. She was safe. She was free. She was with him. I doubt she even thinks of me, not even in her dreams—even though I spend every waking moment thinking of her.

. . . and my relief must be to loathe her.

* * *

_Author's Note: The final line would be a quote from Othello, of course._


End file.
